The ringing in my ears, the disgusting cough, the way people in restaurants move to other tables. All are hints of a sinus infection too long neglected, so I decide it's time for a visit to my friendly neighborhood clinic. After the customary weight, ear-temperature and blood pressure checks, I'm left alone in the examining room to ponder a three-dimensional plastic representation of the human digestive system. I'm halfway between the spleen and the large intestine when the PA bursts in, cheerful as always, and begins leafing through my chart. She wonders, aloud, how I'm doing; I tell her I've been better, and at the same time, worse. Unfazed, she listens to my breathing sounds with the stethoscope she happens to have hanging around her neck. Satisfied that air is moving in and out, she shines a light in my nose, then returns to my chart to document her findings.

She prescribes an antibiotic, and also mentions the name of a new decongestant I can easily—and more inexpensively—obtain at the local supermarket. I recognize the name; I've seen it on display in a number of stores. Thanking the PA for her time and attention, I leave with a new sense of joy over my impending return to good health.

The Pharmacy

Pushing my cart through the pharmacy aisle at the supermarket, I notice several prominent displays near the decongestant products. A new medical remedy always receives more than the ordinary level of attention, I think, especially this time of year when so many are suffering the indignities of colds, coughs, and related plagues. Contemplating the decongestants, my eye falls on the recommended product. Not exactly cheap. Immediately to its left the generic equivalent beckons; the difference in price is impossible to ignore. Having left my reading glasses in the car, I can make out only one word on the package by virtue of its extra-large print: Mucus. Stifling a cough, I toss the box into my cart and move off in search of toothpaste.

As I pass the pharmacy window, a woman in a white coat is watching me intently. She isn't smiling, and her head is moving slowly from side to side. She seems to be mouthing a word, silently, as if someone might overhear. I think the word is mucus, but then she begins to make wet, gurgling sounds, like an amplified fish tank. I quicken my pace, heading for the checkout. Strangers everywhere, I think, and now they're behind the pharmacy counter, too.

The Horror

Back in the car, I start the engine and wait for warm air from the heater. I think about the checkout clerk, and the way he laughed when he rang up the box of decongestants. With my glasses on I can read the box now, but it's only one word over and over where the dosage instructions should be, and everywhere else, too. Same word as the one printed extra large on the front. I look at the receipt; it only says mucus tabs, followed by the price. Whatever. I open the box, and pop the lid off the white plastic container. Big blue tablets. They look more like candy, I think, reaching for my water bottle. May as well start decongesting now. I swallow one, then another, and back out of the parking space. In the mirror, three people in white lab coats are watching me, but when I look over my shoulder three birds fly away. I exit the parking lot and head for home.

Driving toward the setting sun, I notice a bluish tint that seems to be coloring everything inside the car, although through the windows objects appear as they always do. At a red light, I take off my sunglasses and rub my eyes, but this doesn't affect the phenomenon at all. I put the sunglasses on again and wait for the light to change. But the green light never appears; instead, it changes from red to blue. I begin to cough, lightly at first, then uncontrollably. Behind me, horns blare as drivers lose patience. My coughing blends with the horns until there's only one sound, a cacophony of tones perfectly mixed and synchronized with the amplified wet gurgling of a fish tank.

The windshield is covered with an unnamable sludge, and I attempt to activate the wipers although my entire body is convulsing from the uninterrupted coughing. Somehow I find the switch, but the sludge is on the inside; it's mucus, which I've been expelling in revolting volume through my mouth and nose. I'm suddenly nauseous and roll down the window, but a crowd has gathered and small children are peering at me—one is only inches away from my face. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and offers it to me; I gratefully accept. He begins to sing a song, but the sound is coming from the radio in the car. It's Lou Reed's New Sensations, and I comment on the lad's fine rendition of it.

The Cure

I open my door and get out of the car, but I'm not in traffic anymore; instead, I seem to be all alone on a desolate plain. No hills or trees or grass, or features of any kind for that matter. No people, or houses. I notice a dirty cloud on the horizon, like a sandstorm, which appears to be growing rapidly as if moving toward me at a high rate of speed. The ground begins to tremble. I realize I'm in the path of a herd of stampeding buffalo and begin looking for a place of safety, but there's no such place. I decide the best way to handle the situation is by holding up one hand and saying "Stop!" in a very loud voice. I do this, and the cloud—which by now has arrived—immediately dissipates, along with the thundering hooves. Directly in front of me is a large rabbit with an even larger drum bearing the Energizer logo. He asks me ifI need a ride. I reply that I thought he was a buffalo herd, and begin to apologize for making him stop. In a quavering falsetto, he interrupts me with a string of Latin words, which I don't understand. He begins to beat his drum, slowly at first, but then so rapidly that the drumsticks become a blur and the drumbeats a steady tone. The rabbit disappears in a cloud of dust, but this time there are no thundering hooves; there's only an unwavering musical note that gradually fades to silence as the cloud moves toward the horizon, and then is gone.

I start at the sound of my name. The nurse is wondering whether I'd like to come in, or just stay in the waiting room and sleep. She smiles. I rub my eyes as I stand, and move toward the doorway on unsteady legs. I tell her it's the mucus tablets; they make me sleepy. She nods. "Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease," she quips. After the customary weight, ear-temperature and blood pressure checks, I'm left alone in the examining room to ponder a three-dimensional plastic representation of the human digestive system. I'm halfway between the spleen and the large intestine when the PA bursts in, cheerful as always, and begins leafing through my chart. She wonders, aloud, how I'm doing; I tell her I've been better, and at the same time, worse. Unfazed, she listens to my breathing sounds with the stethoscope she happens to have hanging around her neck. Satisfied that air is moving in and out, she shines a light in my nose, then returns to my chart to document her findings. Outside the office window, three birds form a blue triangle in the sky.